Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19214 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 447 pages

Review
A powerful first novel about a tumultuous and almost forgotten period of history. --Times Literary Supplement

A remarkable book about war, friendship, memory and discipline. --Ian McMillan, BBC Radio 3

Haunting and highly evocative... a deeply moving tale. --Cape Times

Ian McMillan, The Verb, BBC Radio 3
A remarkable book

Cape Times
"Haunting and highly evocative... a deeply moving tale."

Customer Reviews

A good read mostly!
The gift of rain succeeds very well in recreating the atmosphere of Penang just before and also during WW2 and the Japanese occupation. It tells the story of young Philip Hutton, half English and half Chinese, who feels at odds with his family as he thinks he doesn't belong to either community.It is also the story of the consuming relationship he builds with his Japanese sensei Endo san and the complex emotions he has to go through as love,faith and admiration have to battle distrust and bitterness and a powerful sense of betrayal when the Japanese finally become the new masters of the island. Philip's life is rendered even more difficult when he decides to collaborate with the invading forces so as to protect his family. A traitor for them and for all the people who knew him when he grew up, he hides the fact that he also betrays his new masters and tries to save lives whenever he can.
The author really succeeded in drawing the different communities and his portrayal of the emotional turmoil of the protagonists doesn't fail to interest and move. It is therefore a pity that the novel has flaws. One of these is that less care has been taken in writing about Philip's English family whose members (apart from his father)seem two dimensional caricatures of real people.Another one is that since, right at the beginning of the book we know that Philip aged 70 or thereabouts is alone in the world, having lost all his family during the war, the writer then has to 'bump ' them all off, (none can be saved)and doesn't always manage to do it creditably (I mean in particular the death of his sister and mostly his father's). How can we believe that while Philip's secret partisan activities have finally been discovered and that he has been branded a traitor and condemned to die, his sensei, however well placed in the Japanese hierarchy, can save his life? ' I can only save one of you, you or your father, and your father wants you to live',this is more or less the content of Endo san 's speech.Highly improbable! As for Philip's only friend's death,here we go again and we are asked to suspend our powers of disbelieving way beyond the reasonable.Kon has been a guerilla fighting the enemy with great success and how does he meet his end? Is he killed by his enemies? No! He is shot at by a female comrade and former lover who 'hasn't been the same since she had to abort the baby she carried'What a logical explanation for shooting the best hope you have of defeating your worst nightmare, namely the Japanese invaders.
It is a great pity that those examples of bad melodrama somewhat detract from the otherwise very good impression the book left.They are however only moments in a long and mostly interesting journey and shouldn't make you feel the book isn't worth reading because it is.

Thought Provoking
I have a son who practises martial arts - his training has made The Gift of Rain more enjoyable. The mysticism of the Chinese & Japanese cultures set against our own makes for a thoughtful reading. The theme I found most intriguing lies with in the central characters of the book being extremely physically strong but are able to hold back and keep negative thoughts and deeds in check - couple this with an insight to the Buddha way of thinking and you have perhaps a recipe for the idealist way living we may like to aspire to. A simple motto "just because you can doesn't necessary mean you should........" springs to mind. Living with consequences is another theme and becomes more poignant with the passing of time - historical world events underpinnng the storyline have a huge impact on how your view might be changed. For me , Tan Twan is a breathe of fresh air and shows us that authors the world over are able to give us a tantalising glimpse into their cultural worlds

Fantastic insight into another era
There were two things I did not like about this book - first was that the author seemed cram unnecessary amounts of history at every opportunity. Much as I admire the author's research, it became a bit tedious midway through, especially since it seemed to have been fitted in for no apparent reason rather than to create an information overload. Secondly, I found the prose a bit monotonous, while the author has created superb and memorable characters, this did not carry through in the dialogues, resulting in the fact that every character sounded exactly like the author!

Apart from that, however, this is a brilliant book. The characters stick to your mind long after you've finished the last page, the descriptions are brilliant and vivid, and the tension between the Chinese Malaysians and the Japanese (something which has not been given much historical attention) is analysed with subtlety and sensitivity, as is the uncomfortable relationship that Malaya had with the colonial British. The author admits to embellishing a few historical bits, but this does not detract from the fact that this is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Being a Malaysian myself, I have been brought up with many horrific accounts of what happened during the Japanese occupation, and this book brings it into sharp focus of the events that led to it, as well as the events that have happened since. Highly recommended. I look forward to his next work.